A Belarusian court on Wednesday sentenced the prominent Belarusian basketball player Yelena Levchenko to 15 days’ administrative arrest for “participation in unauthorized mass events”, the website Tut.by reports.
Levchenko was detained at Minsk airport on Wednesday morning as he prepared to go to a previously planned course of treatment and rehabilitation.
She was accused of taking part in the protests on 23 and 27 September, using as evidence a photograph published in her instagram account and a publication on the sports news site Pressbol.
Levchenko herself pointed out in court that she did not remember where she was at the time, but had simply walked the streets.
Levchenko has played for the Belarusian national team since 2001, including at the Olympic Games. She is a three-time Euroleague bronze medalist and a three-time European Championship bronze medalist.
Protests against the falsification of the presidential election have been reported in Belarus for more than a month and a half. Several thousand people have been detained and several hundred injured during the protests.
According to the official results of the presidential election in Belarus on August 9, the current head of state Alexander Lukashenko won 80.1% of the vote, and opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovska – 10.1%, but the opposition believes the election results are fake and Tikhanovsky won the election convincingly.
The European Union and other Western countries have also refused to recognize the election results.
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